Scientists Discover Virus Responsible for Genea-Skankery

Genealogist-ologist Dr. Pat Smith, who studies genealogists in their natural habitats, has followed up his groundbreaking work on the origins of genea-crap with a new report. In it, Dr. Smith reveals that he has discovered a new virus. This virus is believed to be the cause of the recent explosion of genea-skankery—that is, great-grannies who are subjected to random hookups by their cluefree descendants.

“It’s always been a problem,” says Dr. Smith, “but the rise of the internet has brought an exponential increase in genea-skankery. An astonishing number of online trees contain unlikely scenarios, like woman marrying their own grandsons or giving birth to their own parents. Even grannies with no children at all are often found married to random strangers on these online trees.”

Dr. Smith’s study also involved hiring a snarky blogger with a Ouija board a professional medium in order to understand the impact of genea-skankery on actual dead people. The medium was able to reach a number of victims of genea-skankery.

One woman, Mildred Johnson (1812-1887), was married off to two complete strangers, a nephew, and a grandson in various trees on the internet. She was not happy. “This is whack,” fumed Mildred. “The least these genea-boobs could have done is hook me up with someone hot, like one of those dudes on My Daguerreotype Boyfriend. Hooking me up with my own grandson? That’s just nasty.” Florence Brown (1849-1926) was equally incensed. “Don’t people think before they put stuff out there? I mean, duh. It’s 2011. You people have invented penicillin and indoor plumbing and the atom bomb and Diet Coke, but you can’t figure out how to make sure you have the right person on your tree? Really? How stupid are you, exactly?”

Dr. Smith’s study showed that the best prevention for genea-skankery was common sense and source citations. “It’s simple,” he says.”People need to say where they got their information, and they need to look at it and see whether it makes sense. Up to 90% of all genea-skankery could be prevented by this sort of basic genea-hygiene.”

Some of the dead grannies themselves aren’t so optimistic. “Yeah, good luck with that,” said Oline Jorgensen (1854-1887). “You’re talking to the same people who keep forwarding those email hoaxes from 1996. They’re never going to acquire a clue.”

OMG this is hilarious! I just wrote a blog post about something similar I found on Ancestry.com recently. The woman’s son was born when she was 4, her grandson born before her and she had records merged from two of my people of the same name. She lived in two places at the same time too. Crazy!

Love love love this post! You gave me a MUCH needed laugh this morning!

What a hoot! Made my day. I need to come back and read again everytime I find one of my relatives stuck in a tree where they don’t belong. Another symptom may be getting married at age 4 – to someone who lived in another state.

I found the photo on iStockphoto while looking for something else entirely. This is another one of those situations where I find a picture and it inspires a post. Picking out the photos is one of the best parts of blogging.

This post is a riot, too! Although I like to think my great-grandma, who probably never traveled more than 100 miles from the rural Missouri community where she was born in the 1870s and died in the 1940s, is happy knowing she’s currently having adventures in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky.

What a hoot! And so very, very true. There are those out there that say my husband’s family is from a grandson of a president – and the grandson never had children!? So how do people not notice things like that? This one is being sent over the e-mail waves to others I know…..maybe they will listen up?

Hilarious!….but sadly true. I have seen this sort of thing so many times in people’s trees. If only people would step back and look at the data and ask “Is this reasonable?” I see so many people who will have 3 different census records, all different locations for one ancestor for the same year. That said I do have an ancestor listed in the 1920 census twice and one who married her much older uncle (blood uncle-mother’s brother–yuk). But before putting it in my tree I asked “Is it reasonable?” and got more than one source.

Fantastic post! There are a few of my ancestors on Ancestry that have been victims of genea-shankery of the worst kind. Those people who suffer from this nasty virus seem to have also lost the ability to communicate with anyone who retains their common sense and offers source citations!

Sweet and funny – I am bookmarking this one Now if we could only hear from the g*-grans who are replaced in trees by their husbands’ mothers or by their own daughters-in-law . . . it is really down and dirty to displace folk from their own families!

Great post! Loved the title, but you always keep me cracked up. I teach Marketing in Social Media to college students and have used your titles as what to “DO” as opposed to the “DON’Ts” for open-ability and read-ability!

Absolutely fantastic!!!! Keep them coming Kerry!! Highlights all those lazy ‘genealogists’ who just click. Might make then think to Research the information they get if they realise how they seem. The more mistakes that get published the worse it will egt, surely.